Dallas is a Scottish surname and place name, usually explained as "meadow dwelling" or "valley house", from the Gaelic dail, meadow, and the Old English for a house; the Texas city was named after a 19th-century American of that surname. Like Austin and Denver it carries the sound of the American West, and the long-running TV series Dallas made it a household word. In the United States Dallas has moved from number 309 in 2000 to number 238 among boys' names in 2025, its highest rank so far.